Movie Review: Guilt by Design

Guilt By Design (PG13)

Starring Nick Cheung, Zhang Han, Kent Cheng

Directed by Lai Siu Kwan, Sze Pak Lam, Liu Yongtai

Nick Cheung plays Hui, a single father and psychologist who becomes a juror in the murder trial of an heiress. Nefarious forces want her convicted; their plan is to tamper with the jury. So they kidnap the shrink’s daughter and threaten to kill her if he can’t deliver the guilty verdict in an hour.

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'Guilt by Design': The seven jurors can't decide what to order for lunch.

But Hui is no ordinary psychologist — he’s a hypnosis expert, so good that he should get his own Netflix special. While Hui is inside the deliberation room toying with the jurors’ minds and hatching a plan to get back at the kidnappers, his ex-soldier brother-in-law (Zhang Han) is outside tracking down the girl (good thing she’s wearing a GPS watch, right?).
This could’ve been a nail-baiting race-against-time thriller if it wasn’t for the one too many convenient coincidences in the plotting, and a silly OTT ending (warning: dubious green-screen effect) that belongs in a Wu Jing actioner. (**1/2)
Photos: Shaw Organisation